Unique Low

Impact Expeditions Since 1999

Mountain 45 - Day 1

May is the slowest month of the year for
tourism. As much fun as we have running meaningful trips,
I’ve been waiting for this month throughout our busy season.
I’ve been itching to research some jungle trekking
opportunities that my guide, Khun Big, has been raving
about. He is from that area. Earlier, we ventured up to this
area for a couple of days and had a delightful time. We
hooked up with some of Big’s childhood friends to guide us,
we stayed in laid-back accommodations, and of course, we ate
like pigs.

Joining us on this adventure was Mr. Peter
Noble, a long-term resident of Phuket and a long-time
friend.

Less than an hour from the Sarasin Bridge
(the bridge to Phuket), we arrived in Phang Nga Town. As
luck would have it, our scheduled guide couldn’t get off
from work at the ice factory. No problem. Big called another
friend and we headed to a huge mountain that we visited on
our previous research trip. I had already planned on
visiting this mountain again, just not on the first day.

It
had been raining. The ground was wet. As soon as we started
walking, we started seeing leeches. No matter our speed,
they got on our shoes. Stopping every few minutes, we’d all
flick them off. It’s not as bad as it might sound really.
They carry no diseases and you don’t even feel them. The
higher we went, the fewer we encountered. Of course, by the
time you’ve climbed for an hour + at about a 45 degree angle
you kind of lose interest in the leeches.

I had put some waypoints in my GPS in the
hope that we would be able to do an ‘A’ to ‘B’ walk this
time. On our last visit we went up and back down the same
way.

As we got a bit of a late start, it was
lunchtime by the time we reached a camp area that the local
government built. This was nice as it offered us many places
to sit off of the ground. The temperature was really nice at
elevation and the food was yummy.

Carrying on, we reached a Buddha statue at
the summit. We looked east and saw a village past a gap
between two mountains. That was our goal. It didn’t look
like it was going to be difficult to reach. We were wrong.

From
the alkaline mountain top with certain alkaline-loving
plants such as Straits Rhododendron, insect-eating Pitcher
Plants, various ferns, one common orchid, and some scraggly
trees, we searched for a way down. The ‘rock’ was kind of
like petrified dirt. It wasn’t overly secure. Making up
switchbacks, we managed to get down into the fern jungle.
Um, these were a lot taller than we hoped. The going was
slow. Our guide, Deem, took the point and started hacking…
and hacking.

It took quite a long time to reach some
trees and open-ness. The downside was that the ground was
exceedingly uneven. It was pretty flat in the fern area.
This was various sized rocks covered in vegetation. The
going was slow.

The jungle gradually opened up, but it got
steep. Looking at my GPS, even though we thought we had
maintained a fairly straight path, we were, in reality,
heading in almost the opposite of our intended direction. We
made the correction and carried on.

Not long after that, I happened to finally
look at my watch. “Crickey! It’s after 4:00 PM!” In essence,
we had made very little progress. Our options were to head
back in the direction from which we just came or take a
right and try to intercept the trail up the mountain. We
went for plan B.

We ended up going down for a ways, but that
kept sending up away from the trail. Our only option was to
climb a really steep mountain with no trail. We pushed on.

Through the thick jungle, we could tell that
we were nearing a ridge. The trail was on a ridge. The GPS
said we were in the vicinity.

We came upon an obvious past camping spot.
There were trails going basically in three different
directions. Again, we relied on technology to tell us which
one.

At last, we arrive at the beaten path. It
was late, but not so late that we wouldn’t make it by dark.
We decided to jog/run whenever the opportunity presented
itself. The downhill was understandably at 45 degrees going
down as that’s what it was going up. It was tricky going.

All-in-all, this isn’t a trail for the
moderately fit, nor for those who are not familiar with
walking on truly challenging terrain. Big recently found a
guide who supposedly knows a way to our target village. I
want to do it, but again, this is not something we will
offer to just anyone. If you want a challenge however, this
is it.

Day
2 – The Flatlands near the Jungle Temple

The guide we were supposed to have on the
first day was available on this day. Bawn works at an ice
factory, but he’s also a frog hunter. The large area of
fairly flat land has several small creeks. This is where he
hunts frogs.

One our previous reccy, he took us to a
particular area that was almost entirely flat and really
scenic. We ended up at a lovely quaint jungle temple. This
was exactly what I was after as a big part of why I was
doing this was for school group trips. This temple would be
perfect for camping. Besides having plenty of completely
flat ground, there were many covered areas to cook in case
it rained. There was also a spotlessly clean Western-style
toilet. On this day, we parked at the temple and started
walking. I told Bawn that I wanted at least a five hour
walk.

The first section took us up next to an
attractive cliff. Bawn said there are some caves we could
walk in, but I opted not to check them out in this
particular trip. One apparently goes for quite a ways and
exits on the same cliff face further down. That sounded
interesting.

We soon ended up walking in a shallow creek.
The water was cool and refreshing. We splashed some on our
faces to cool down.

This area has a lot of palm fruits, but it
also has Burmese grapes (Baccaurea ramiflora). These fruits
are sweet with a hint of tanginess. We found quite a few.
Between this fruit and others, we certainly enough to
satisfy our energy needs if we were indeed in a survival
situation.

There were a couple of slightly tricky
spots, mostly when we either entered or exited a creek, but
for the most part the trails were flat and easy. This day
would be perfect for families and for school groups. There
is plenty of shade, plenty of very interesting plants,
splendid rocks and cliffs, and a good mixture of creeks vs.
dirt trails.

Day
3 - Easy-going Creek Hike

Big contacted some old school mates to take
us up a creek. When we arrived, we luckily happened to meet
another old friend of his who wanted to join us. He ended up
being the leader of this group as this was his stomping
ground. He also spoke quite a bit of English.

At the very beginning part of this creek the
locals offer ATV rides. However, within a few minutes, the
terrain is not compatible for that… only for walking.
Walking up a creek is one of the easiest and most pleasant
ways to access otherwise thick jungle. The only downside is
that some of the rocks are slippery. We quickly got used to
figuring out the appearance of the more slippery rocks and
simply avoided them.

During this time of the year, there are a
lot of trees in fruit and mushrooms are also plentiful. We
found mushrooms that I had never seen before. Some of them
were edible while others were used in medicine.

At one point we headed up a well-marked
trail. This trail is used to avoid a particularly risky area
of the creek that has some drops on slippery rocks. The
trail also allowed us to find some different types of flora
as we were not in the riparian area, but into the jungle.
There were different trees, flowers and fruit from what we
commonly saw near the water.

Khun Wat, the guide who joined us, really
knew his plants. He also informed us at one point that we
were further up the creek than he had been before.
Evidently, according to him, no one has gone all the way to
the source of this creek. He claimed it’s a long way off.
Once I got back home and plugged my GPS into Google Earth I
verified that this is indeed a large area and the source of
the creek would be quite far away. I estimate that it would
take a solid three to four days to get to the summit of
where the source is likely located, across the ridge and
down the other side to a village. This is a future project.

Day
4 – Ridgetop Misty Mountain Ramble

The weather looked a bit threatening. The
sky to the east was dark and looking up divulged that it was
heading towards us. There was no thunder or lightning, so we
weren’t concerned.

Today’s guide was a young chap named Palm.
Wat also joined us on this day.

We parked near a small lake and headed up
cultivated land. The angle of our climb up the mountain
slope was steep, but nowhere near what we had done on the
first day. We could see that we would soon enter some
old-growth jungle and shortly thereafter, a ridge.

When we arrived, the mountaintop was
shrouded in mist. The rain was light. It was like being in a
mystical air conditioned jungle. It looked like an area
where one would expect to see the knights who say ‘ni’.

A smooth trail coursed through the stunning
jungle. The area was open and the walking was really easy.
It went like this for quite a way. There were huge trees on
either side of us for the entire day. Wind plays havoc with
big trees. There was a downed one and it was full of orchids
and epiphytes. According to my guys, many of the orchids
were quite rare. None were in flower, but the plants were
interesting nonetheless.

At one point we went down to walk in a
high-country creek. It was unique and very pleasant, but
there were a couple of awkward bits where we had to ascend
slick rock. This stretch is avoidable, but I’m glad we did
it.

We found plenty of fruit and plants to eat
on the mountaintop. We saw evidence of Pangolin, bear, wild
pigs, monkeys, and deer. Lunch was at a massive tree with
far-reaching buttress roots that made good seats.

The ridge trail continued for a couple more
hours and, according to Palm, it goes for a few more hours
like this. I could definitely stand more of what we were on,
but we kept it at a five hour walk.

All-in-all, I’m extremely pleased with Big’s
guide friends and exceedingly pleased with the hikes they
provided us. The first day was a bit too hardcore for most
folks, but the next three days were perfectly suited to the
moderately fit adventurer.

Besides offering this area to school groups,
our goal is to offer multi-day combo hiking/survival trips
in this area. It’s also possible to offer a day trip from
Phuket as it’s so close.

We’re off there again the day after
tomorrow… and probably a few more times this summer. Ah, the
joys of the slow season.